


Playing Games

by kingstonique



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 18:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingstonique/pseuds/kingstonique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“But-but the diary!” He finally gets out. “What about it?” Alex- Alex? River? Jesus Christ, maybe that hangover from this morning is a lot worse than he thought. Anyway. She looks just as confused as he feels. “You’re- You’re not really River Song, are you?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing Games

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously this is crack, and also it's the first fanfiction I post on here *is nervous*  
> I do not know any of these people in real life. The story is this cool thing called fiction.  
> Enjoy!

He decides when he enters the studio at 7 am that this is definitely too early to shoot anything that requires him to be that energetic. Or excited. Or anything else but tired… Maybe, probably actually, the reason for that is that Kazza and Arthur dragged him to the pub yesterday night and he came home to sleep to an absolutely ungodly hour in the middle of the night when he knew exactly that he’d have to get up that early the next morning. But the two of them were town, after what seemed like forever, and honestly, what else was he going to-

“Hello, Sweetie.” Matt only sees the mass of curls from the corner of his eyes, but he would recognize that voice and that catch phrase anywhere in the entire universe. Suddenly, that morning doesn’t seem that bad, after all. Even when he counts the massive headache right behind his forehead. “Kingston!” He beams at her and almost spills his coffee when he tries to look cool and lean against the wall next to her. “I didn’t know that you were coming in today!” Of course he knows that she’s here in Cardiff. He even picked her up from the airport, with his heart beating so fast and loud the entire time that he was sure she could hear it. His thoughts stumbling around in his head like drunkards when she asked him questions probably didn’t help much either. But still, he could’ve sworn that she wasn’t supposed to film until tomorrow. “Kingston?” Alex raises her eyebrows and he laughs at her expression that is actually slightly offended. “Who’s Kingston?” “I thought you liked it when I called you by your last name.” Matt pouts and looks at her. When he notices that her expression is still as confused as before, he frowns a bit.

“Doctor, who’s Kingston? Or are we playing some sort of game?” Suddenly, her hands reach for his bow tie and she pulls him so close that he can’t even appreciate how she’s purring out that sentence. “A-at least I wasn’t planning on it, no.” Damn. He’s usually so much better at this. They’re a brilliant team when it comes to flirting, him and The Kingston. But now, with all of that gorgeous hair and her smile right in front of his face, he can’t help but stutter a bit before he catches himself. “Why, who are you then?” He smirks and bops her nose. There. That’s better. “River Song?” Alex laughs at that and rests her hand so casually on his chest as if she’d do that all the time. Which she really doesn’t. But he sure as hell isn’t going to complain. “Who else?” 

He wants t reply with some witty comment, but then Jenna is finally here and they’re calling him on set. Right. Really though, why is Alex here when she doesn’t have to shoot a scene? He also hasn’t seen her in make-up, now that he thinks of it… It distracts him with no end, how she’s strutting around the room, watching him act, fiddling with River’s gun and telling everyone who is confused about her behavior that she is, in fact, River Song. By lunchtime, the entire crew knows what Alex is doing, and while some just shake their heads and tell her that they won’t get anything done that way, others think it’s absolutely hilarious and try to find out why she is doing it. She acts adorably confused when someone asks her that question, and only because Matt is paying so much attention to what she is doing, he can see how that line appears on her forehead that tells him that she is slightly frustrated. Still, he doesn’t really have any time to ponder about it before she suddenly falls in the chair next to him and looks straight at him with those bright eyes. “So tell me, Sweetie, what exactly are you doing here?” Honestly, he kind of likes this game. More than he should, probably. They are husband and wife. And the whole thing is kind of… Hot. Alright, really hot. “I could ask you the same thing.” He grins around a bite of his sandwich and wiggles his eyebrows at her as she swats at his arm with River’s diary.

“Oh, you know, Stormcage was a little boring, so I escaped and thought I’d have a little fieldtrip. Popped over to Calisto 5b, but then- I think I offended some pretty important people there, kind of had to make a run for it.” She laughs that throaty, sexy laugh he absolutely adores and he smiles. Of course she’d come up with something… 

Absentmindedly, he reaches for River’s diary sitting on the table in front of them and plays with it before Alex’s hand snatches it from him. “Spoilers! Don’t you know that rule yet?” “Oh, come on, Kingston.” Matt laughs and wipes his hands on his trousers before he reaches for the diary again. He knows that Alex and Kaz used it to write messages to each other sometimes, but most of the pages are just empty. “What do you have in there that you don’t want me to see, do you write smut about the Doctor and River during breaks?” “Wouldn’t you like to know?” His laugh is stuck in his throat when he goes through the pages while Alex’s arm still tries to stop him. It’s stuck there because he finds a lot more about River in there than he knows. Or than anyone knows, really. He can just catch the words “Jim the Fish” and knows that something is going terribly, terribly wrong before she finally wrestles the blue book from him. “I think that’s more than enough, my love.” The smile that comes with it is nothing he can even really appreciate. “Where’s the fun in this when you already know everything?” Matt can’t do much else than stare and shake his head.

“But-but the diary!” He finally gets out. “What about it?” Alex- Alex? River? Jesus Christ, maybe that hangover from this morning is a lot worse than he thought. Anyway. She looks just as confused as he feels. “You’re- You’re not really River Song, are you?” God, he feels stupid for asking that question. “Who else would I be? Really Doctor, what-“ “Alex?” Oh, great. Oh, this is just wonderful. The director is standing behind them, interrupting something that actually isn’t much more than a shocked, stuttering Matt when he asks River-slash-Alex if they can run a scene with her afterwards, and while she nods excitedly, Matt just knows that she can’t possibly be filmed without revealing that she might or might not be River Song herself. 

“But- you can’t be River Song. River Song isn’t real. Also, I’m not the Doctor. I’m just… Matt.” He tells her all of that as a jumbled mess of a sentence as soon as the director doesn’t hear them anymore, but the woman in front of him just drags her hand through his hair and it feels so good that he has to close his eyes. “I thought we weren’t playing games…” “We’re not! You’re- You’re-“ “Also.” She suddenly stops and glares at him. “How am I not real? What do you mean?” She crosses her arms before something quite naughty finds its way in her look. “Has it been so long that you need me to remind you how real I am? There’s quite a lot of people around for that, don’t you think? Not that I mind.” Matt almost chokes on the big gulp of water he has currently in his mouth and sputters. “River!” 

“Alex, Matt, five minutes!” 

What the hell is he supposed to do now? What if- What if he isn’t completely crazy and this is actually River Song in front of him? His fingers reach for his mobile phone automatically, going through his contacts until he finds “K” and prays that please, please, she’ll pick up soon. 

“Hello?” Her voice is so low and drowsy that he’s sure that she’s been asleep. Much, much too distracting right now. “Kingston! Alex, you’re not on set, are you?” “No, darling.” She gives a bit of a confused laugh after yawning and Matt doesn’t even have time to feel bad about waking her up as he eyes the woman in front of him, who is currently playing with a gun on the table again. A gun- that is probably very real! Quickly, he pushes it out of her- honestly, he refuses to call her River- reach, but she just laughs and kisses him on the cheek. “You might not know it yet, but you actually like that gun quite a lot.” Matt rolls his eyes. “Spoilers.” “Kinky.”

“Matt, honey, who’s there?” Alex is still on the phone. Of course. “Uh- no one.” You. Some character you play in a show. A parallel universe version of Alex Kingston. “Listen, change of plans, they said they would need you on set this afternoon.” He finally gets out, because he needs The Kingston here and River- wherever she has to go, really. Just everywhere but here. “Really? Steven didn’t call me…” She sounds so unsure that he’s positive that she’s going to say that she already has other things to do, and Matt is still on the phone with Alex, trying to convince her that yes, she really does need to come here for that scene, when he follows River through the door back to the set. The last thing he hears before he disappears around a corner to finish the phone call is a complaint from her that the TARDIS console isn’t real.

\---------------------------------------------

 

When Alex finally pulls into the parking lot about an hour later, she finds the set in a complete chaos. There’s Matt, who’s running up to her with completely messed up hair, there’s the set itself with a TARDIS console that has half of the leavers pointed in very odd directions, there’s Steven who keeps shooting her very angry glares and yells before she’s even closed the door that this is not improvisation class and that she needs to stick to the script. Before she can even wonder what exactly that means, she notices that there is something else. Someone who looks like herself, standing with a smile in the middle of the chaos, and she strides over to Alex and looks her right in the eyes. “Interesting.” “River! River, come along, this way, no, not- Alex. Uh.” Matt’s eyes go back and forth between the two women and Alex is sort of scared that he might start to hyperventilate or something. Like she probably will in a second. “Back to Stormcage. That caused enough trouble, I think.” Matt’s voice is definitely more exhausted than usually. “But, Doctor-“ “No.” Alex looks after the two of them in stunned silence when Matt drags the other woman to the door. Who is apparently River Song. “Who is she? Are you shagging her? You’d have to, with the parallel universes and everything.” River looks back at Alex and winks at her before she turns around to Matt. “Are you? I can see the way you look at her, you –“ Then, the door closes behind them and there are lots of people who still don’t quite understand what happened, and there’s the make-up department who still wants to find out why she’s suddenly wearing no make-up and different clothes, and Alex doesn’t know the answer to any of these questions until Matt comes back.

When he finally does, Alex is in costume and has convinced Steven that she really didn’t want to upset anyone with the way she acted this morning. Thank god he likes her so much… The thing that doesn’t leave her mind at the moment is something the other woman said right before the door closed. “I can see the way you look at her” and “Are you shagging her?” It does sound like River Song. She has to admit that. But that’s not why those words keep sticking around. “So…” Matt trips over two props on the way over to her and she snorts in her coffee. “So. Did you just babysit River Song this morning?” Alex turns around to him and watches him flush and fidget in front of her. “Kind of. Maybe. Yeah.” He sniffs finally. Alex just raises her eyebrows. “How was that?” “Nerve racking.” “Hm.” 

They stand for a while in silence and Alex sips her coffee before she speaks up again. “Did she really ask you if we were shagging or was that just my imagination?” Matt sputters again and flushes a bright red. “She might have.” Alex nods and bites her lip so she doesn’t laugh. “What did you say?” “I said no, obviously.” “Obviously, yes…” She sighs a bit and thinks again how wrong it is to feel disappointed that that’s the truth. But who could blame her?

“What did she say?” She asks after another moment of awkward silence and by the way Matt reacts, she knows that this is the actual embarrassing part of that conversation. “She said that she knew for a fact that we would, sooner or later.” Alex lets her curls tumble over her shoulders as she leans her head back and laughs. 

“Darling, I’d rather start sooner.”


End file.
